WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Bleacher Boys: Wild Endings and Record-Breaking Players

Episode Date: November 16, 2024

This week, the boys talk about the biggest and most exciting games of Week 11 of College Football. They talk the wild endings and catches that probably flew under the radar. They also discuss the player who broke the All-Time Touchdown record for the NCAA this past weekend. As always, they end the show with their picks for next week.

Missouri drops eight. I don't hit. Balslos and a scuptop on it. You're listening to Bleacher Boys, where Paul, George, and Matthew break down the biggest stories in sports from the cheap seats, I guess, on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.

And welcome back to the Bleacher Boys. We're back again. It is myself, Paul Marquette, joined by Matthew Carton and George Ackler. And we had a really great week, and it's a great week to talk about sports, but I just want to start off the show by congratulating George. He nailed his prediction. On Tuesday night, yeah.

Yeah, Tuesday night, he called a blowout, and it was Bowling Green who won by two scores in the Mack showdown. So, congratulations, George. Give yourself a round of applause over there. So I'm not going to, because I know some people feel differently about the results of the bowling green game. So out of respect for those listeners, I will not gloat in my victory. Yeah, those poor, poor fans of Central Michigan, Chip was. Chip was, yeah. We give you our respects. But now let's move on and talk about some college football that happened,

and we had a crazy slate. Boise State, real quick, we'll get this one out of the way. Boise State escapes Nevada 28, 21, three touchdown performance from Ashton, Gentie. Pretty close there, but Boise State ultimately pulls it out. They were much bigger favorites than they ended up winning by. So definitely a closer one than expected, but keep those playoff hopes alive for that FBS team. Can I actually play a clip from a fourth down play that was pretty crazy from that game? And part of the reason that Nevada stayed so close.

So for those of you who didn't watch, fourth and one on the 44-yard line in plus territory for Nevada, let's take a listen. So, yeah, obviously a very big call to call a flicker on fourth down, kind of reminiscent of Philly Special a little bit, how it was run, but Boise State's still able to overcome a big defensive error there and get the dub. Well, that play ended on a touchdown, right? Yeah. So that was not only a first down, but a big touchdown for them, playing at Boise State on the road, playing on a blue turf field, a little bit crazy for the senses, and ultimately they keep that record pretty pristine for the Mountain West. But, like I said, we'll move on to some bigger teams. First of all, Alabama just walloped LSU. in the nightly game.

I don't think we need to spend too much time on this. I called it. Alabama's talent just showed out, and Jalen Millero had three rushing touchdowns. So huge game for them, swinging momentum back. People kind of ruled them out, especially after losing to Vanderbilt. But they are climbing back up in the SEC,

and that's a conference that is so wide open for any team to take. You just saw Georgia lose this weekend, and we'll talk about that some more. well it'll probably benefit Bama too that they won't pick up that third loss from the SEC championship game it looks like right now they're well within the top 12 teams so as long as they win out against Mercer and oklahoma which they should i expect to see Alabama playing well into December and January yeah being able to walk into death valley and just completely take the crowd out of it is one of the ways that i pretty much is the only way that you're going to win there, as if, you know, you make it not close pretty much immediately, and that's what they did. So, yeah, spoiling the picks of LSU power couple Livy Dunn and Paul Skeens on college game

day right there. Bama fans love to see it as they take on their huge rival in the SEC. So who is in the SEC championship right now? Because right now the top two teams are Tennessee and Texas A&M, both at 5 and 1 in the conference. Texas is at four and one in the conference. So even if there's a loss there, you would assume that two of those teams would at least be playing for the championship.

Yeah, and Texas is right behind them because they only have five total conference games to the six of the other two on top. So we'll see how that plays out because there's some big games yet to be played like Texas, Texas A&M is the last game of the year. Anyways, I think it's about time to talk about the big game of the week.

Kansas finally. pulls it off. There we go, baby. And they beat North Carolina tar heels in a classic college basketball. I mean, sorry, we're not talking about college basketball. We're talking about football. Kansas, big wins on both the hardwood

and on the turf field. They beat Iowa State. This is the game we're going to talk about. They win 45 to 36. Yeah. Before Carton gives us two cents worth, because I know I'm not going to have a lot of chance to talk once he gets going.

I hate to say it, Kansas uniforms looked absolutely majestic. stick there on the field with those Matt blacks. But carton take it away with the analysis. Black Hawk uniforms. They, you know, usually we only bust them out when we're like bowl eligible or, you know, we're playing meaningful games. I'll say, though, there's a scenario where a 6 and 6 Kansas team makes the Big 12

championship game. As crazy as it sounds, every other team has to lose two games and then one of them has to lose out. Well, they have to lose to like Pensacola Christian College. Before you get out ahead of yourself, I think you should be concerned with just trying to make a bull game. Because you've still got a tough schedule ahead of you just to make a bowl game. So we'll just pump the brakes on that a little bit. Yeah, and you don't have the favor of the roughs like the Chiefs do, but that's a different show.

Okay, all right. Yeah, Kansas football, I mean, they played pretty much exactly how they played every game of the year, except they didn't have a negative point differential in the last two minutes of each half. and that's how they're going to win games. I was saying last week, you know, looking at, you know, we're going from Kansas State to a bi-week to Iowa State, and the next is BYU for us. So we're kind of in the middle of a gauntlet in the Big 12 right here.

And I figured we get one out of three games. Now I'm hoping for two out of three. I'm getting a little greedy. But, no, I mean, Kansas, I mean, they looked great. Finally, God, in the swing of things, got to where people thought that they should have been playing the entire. year. Well, and a really tough week for Iowa State fans, I do have to say, they played a pretty easy schedule to start the season, but they remained undefeated, which is no easy contest in

itself. But just, what, 10 days ago, they were the number nine seed. If they win out or even lose one potentially, they're still in the college football playoff, but now there really doesn't look to be a road or a path to that playoff barring dominant performances down the stretch. That's kind of a tough one, but I don't think Kansas is as bad as their record shows. They've played some really solid teams this year like Illinois, UNLV, Arizona State, who's a two-lost team, Kansas State, also a two-loss team. They dropped a couple that they probably shouldn't have to TCU in West Virginia, but overall, definitely a stronger schedule than expected. And like you said, this gauntlet in the Big 12, I don't think anyone expected this to be a gauntlet as Iowa State, BYU and Colorado are all ranked in the next couple of weeks for Kansas. But, I mean, so Kansas is still very much trying to rebuild from the absolutely awful, like, 2010s.

This is the worst type of league to rebuild in because there are, I mean, there aren't any, like, super great teams. Like, you don't really have any Alabama's, but there are no bad teams whatsoever. Like, any team can beat any other team on any given Saturday. And, you know, when you're facing 12 of those opponents in a year, that's it's hard to it's hard to gain momentum i mean i would argue that a big 10 which has four of the top five teams in it is slightly harder but uh yeah definitely good step in the right direction we'll just go back and uh stick with the big 12 b yu barely escapes a battered up utah final score being 2221 and that game ends on a game winning field goal by the uh b yu cougars yeah and don't understand

underestimate how hard that is. I think that was either, if my mind isn't wrong, it was either a 42 or a 46-yard kick, which to win a game is not an easy thing to step up and make. And it's just, oh, and I believe BYU also had a kick return touchdown too. So really special teams coming into the clutch for the Cougars. And I don't know, I bet Cosmo's got to be happy. Yeah, actually, I saw a new, new Cosmo lore for you guys. He was kicking off their basketball season. and he did like a backflip over like a six foot 10 bar. Like he did like a hand spring and stuff and it was pretty cool. Was there a trampoline or just straight off the floor?

I would, I think there might have been like a spring floor. I don't think it was like a full trampoline, but. Disappointed. Yeah. I thought he was the best mascot. But yeah, huge win for BYU. Utah was on their third string quarterback. They had benched Isaac Wilson actually for this game.

and obviously cam rising out for the year. So definitely not full strength there on the offensive side of the ball for Utah, but they're playing at home and they had the crowd behind them the whole entire game, just couldn't pull it off in the end. And there are definitely some complaints about some calls in that game by the Utah fans, even their coach came out and basically attacked the Big 12 itself for their refereeing. Yeah, I mean, no matter who you are, no matter how bad you think a call is, never a good look. Yeah, I mean, this is a classic rivalry game, right? It's new to the Big

12. Kind of like what I was saying earlier, right? Like any team can beat any given team. Like Utah's ranked or BYU's ranked number nine, right? They're just as vulnerable as anybody else, which is good and bad, more good if you're a team like Kansas. So you know your opponents are a little vulnerable, but maybe Utah fans should have just thrown trash on the field if they didn't like the call and then get it overturned. Well, that did happen this past week, and we didn't mention it, but LSU was throwing trash on the field after a call that they didn't like. So thank you, Texas, for setting that precedent.

And it's now coming more and more common. I'm also pretty sure, like, the BYU head cheer coach got nailed by a water bottle or something. Interesting. Yeah, so all around with the coach coming out and complaining about the referees, and then that water bottle obviously came from a BYU, or a Utah fan. probably not intentional but well if they throw the ball like cameraizing it could have been a b yu fan as well well i mean that's probably why we saw the game so close because without uh a cheer coach you know helping motivate the players yeah exactly i don't know it's kind of tough to get going

whenever you you don't have anybody yeah giving any concise and coherent cheers for you speaking of motivated as we continue with bleacher boys on radio free hillsdale one-on-one point seven FM. We have a letter from a motivated fan. This one is from Bryson. Bryson is from Coldwater, Michigan. Hey guys, why the heck is Indiana a top five team? Sincerely, Bryson. Well, Indiana is a top five team because they just don't lose. Indiana escapes another game with a win, and this time it's against the Michigan Wolverines. They keep it close at home, but they ultimately win with a score of 20 to 15. Not much offense in that game, but they stay undefeated. I think there's just a little inconsistency with the rankings.

And I'm not disagreeing that a Big Ten team, if you're undefeated, you could be top five. I will say that for you, Bryson. But it is odd that Tennessee and BYU were ranked above Indiana in the previous poll. Or take that back. Only Tennessee was ranked higher than Indiana in the previous poll. and Tennessee had a much better showing last week against Mississippi State, winning by three possessions versus Indiana barely escaping with a win against a Michigan team that ultimately hasn't proved itself to be very good this year.

Yeah, and regardless of that, like a lot of teams with wins over Michigan, you could probably argue, are overrepresented in that AP poll. I feel like winning versus Michigan has carried a lot of weight with the committee, and I kind of agree with you, George. I don't think that it necessarily should. Yeah, to be fair, the Mississippi State team that Tennessee beat has yet to win a game in conference, and that's definitely a difference to a Michigan Wolverines team that has their fair share of wins, but it's definitely nothing like their version last year.

We'll have to continue to watch Indiana because, according to ESPN's playoff predictor, they have a 93% chance to make the college football playoff, and that is second only to Oregon. That's the thing with college football that makes it so interesting is the wild differences in strength of schedule between different conferences with different teams. In college basketball, it's mitigated by having more games, so you get more representation of how good a team actually is.

And in the NFL, the competition gap is smaller. But in college football, yeah, you run into this problem where you have teams like Indiana that are 10 and O, but maybe don't have as strong with schedule as Tennessee or an Alabama. Right. And so it's just an interesting predicament. Well, another problem that I find with the strength of schedule thing is, you know, teams book their out-of-conference way in advance. So a team like Indiana is not necessarily expecting to be a playoff contender. So they're not aggressively booking non-conference games like some of these top teams and these

conferences. And so they end up, you know, with a weaker non-conference schedule and then they go, well, we got to book tougher conferences so that the committee will like us and all this other stuff. And then when they actually get around to those games three, five years down the line, they're not the same team. And it's, because these teams, you know, they don't ever last as perennial candidates for the playoff. They usually have one or two good years and then they go back to being a middle of the pack team. Yeah. And I just want to say why Indiana is a 93% chance. They play Ohio State next week. If they lose to Ohio State, they don't have to play in a Big Ten championship game. Their last game is against Purdue,

so we're assuming a locked-in win there. And they end the season with one loss. If they don't make the Big Ten championship game, they end the season with one loss. If they do make the Big Ten championship game, it's because they beat Ohio State next week. And that's probably going to hold enough weight. That's not going to put them below the 12th seed. Yeah, definitely. interesting there. Speaking of strength of schedule, a team that most people have been calling out for having the weakest schedule of one of the top 10 teams in the nation is the Miami Hurricanes. Finally, they fall to Georgia Tech in a stunner that just had everybody tuning in. I know I watched this game very closely. It seems like every week you got the TV on and in the fourth quarter, Miami's

close. But it always ends up having Cam Ward and the cardiac canes pulling away and winning by a score or two in the end, but that did not happen this time as they were on the road against Georgia Tech. It ain't all about the U. anymore. This is kind of why I wanted to talk about the Heisman. Cam Ward, he looked, okay, I don't know what his exact stat line was. He did good enough to keep him close, right? And meanwhile, you have Ashton Gentie doing what Ashton Jenty does, scoring three touchdowns. And it's just, you know, does it change anything? I don't know. I think it does shift towards Dylan Gabriel because of his record that he just went over this past week. Did you see that carton?

I did not see that. What's going on there? He has the most touchdowns in NCAA. I believe it's Division I FPS history with 176 touchdowns passing in rushing combined. How many years is Dylan Gabriel been quarterback? Five. So I have his career stats pulled up. He played three years at UCF.

Was he on that national championship roster or was that before his time? I think that's before his time. 2019. Okay. Actually, this is six years. Six years. Six years in college football. Yeah, I was just curious if he had been starting for six or seven years because of the COVID year, you know, kind of like cammerizing at Utah.

I didn't. I would assume that probably contributes at least a little bit to him breaking that record. I don't want to take anything away from him, but. You do wonder if that weighs a little bit on the Heisman committee's decision trying to give the best quarterback, especially if Oregon remains undefeated throughout the season. So it'll be interesting to see if championship weekend, because I'm assuming the three front runners, Gentie Ward, I guess Travis Hunter probably won't be playing for Colorado, but Dylan Gabriel as well, we'll all see them playing on championship weekend. All righty. Well, I think it's time we move on to

the last game that we're going to cover real quick. And that's the Old Miss Georgia game. And Ole Miss came through. They beat Georgia 28 to 10. I saw this coming. I picked it and I picked correctly. Georgia's been having some serious problems on offense and it finally catches up to them. They only scored 10 points in this game. Carson Beck throws another pick. Only one this time so he doesn't three peep for three interceptions, but he also loses a fumble. That's the first thing that I had to check when I looked at the box score on this one. I mean, this is just contributing to the whole SEC is a toss-up this year narrative. It's not really a narrative. It's kind of a reality.

Yeah, you're right. It's one of those games where on paper, it looks like Georgia should win, but I mean, Paul was right. They're kind of struggling recently. I scored 10 points. That's not going to win you hardly any games, especially in college. Especially in the SEC. Yeah. I'm very interested to see what happens down stretch in the SEC. I will correct that. There was the game when it was the game of the century. It was LSU versus Alabama, and that was a final score. of 9 to 3. So that is one of the exceptions of winning a game by scoring less than 10 points in

the SEC. Barring extraordinary circumstances. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Can I go back and talk about something? You said the game of the century. Why are we calling the game of the century in 2011? I just feel like there was a lot of time. I remember that's how it was built. Better games to happen. Maybe that's just Maybe you should have called it the game of the decade or even the game of 2011 kind of rolls off the tongue. But saying, yeah, in 89 years, there's not going to be a better game. Just seems a little. I mean, there might have been a better game this week with the Louisiana Tech game, but that's up to the fan to decide. Yeah, as you mentioned, George, the Louisiana Tech and Jacksonville game.

That was a wild stunner. I didn't even have this on my radar until our illustrious co-host, George Ackola, brought it up. and that was kind of wild. Do we want to listen to the call? Yeah, go ahead. Carten, did you see this at all? I did not see this one. Okay, so this will be new for Carten.

We'll get his live reaction. Last play, Hail Mary, Huff gets it off, gets to the end zone, and it's shots. Touched! Yeah, it's basically it. Yeah, it was crazy. You had that, and that wasn't the only stunning thing that came out of that play.

There was behind the back catch, one-handed. catches the ball, kind of swings it behind his back, and still holds on to it. Goes for the touchdown on that. All the way for a touchdown. Massive play for Louisiana Tech, but ultimately it comes up short as Louisiana Tech loses an overtime to Jacksonville, in case you guys were wondering what the score was on that one. Okay. Can I take this back?

So basically Jacksonville State, I'm pretty sure, let's check this. They missed the extra points, so it did have to go into overtime. Yeah. And on the Hail Mary at the end of the game. So it was Jacksonville State rather that made the Hail Mary at the end of the game, tied it up, just needed an extra point to seal it. And the kicker was able to sleep slightly better knowing that his miskick didn't cost them. Their 5 and 3 record now, 6 and 3. I will quickly do a correction.

I was wrong about the game of the century that I mentioned earlier. It was LSU Alabama. The year was 2011, and LSU actually won that game 9 to 6 in overtime. Oh, it was an overtime. I took him five quarters to... How, okay. It was nine to six in overtime. We had 89 years and we decided in the first 11.

Yep, this is as good as it gets. I don't really remember because I think I was so young and it was just like, this is boring. Yeah, I wish I would have tuned in rather than being eight because now I have to wait till I'm 100 to have a chance to see another game of the century. In 2011, I was just hoping that Kansas would win one game on the season. So anyways, I mean, this has been a fun show, but some people in sports media are not having so much fun. Oh, yeah. While they're calling football games, which for many is a dream job. George, do you have anything else on that?

Yeah, Gus Johnson, probably one of the most recognizable voices in college football. That's my opinion. Paul and I got into an argument about this. He's known for some of the most iconic calls. There's a theory going around the internet right now. he's had to call the last three Ohio State games. And he's probably Fox's number one commentator. So to be stuck on two of those three games were not really expected to be close games.

Specifically, Purdue versus Ohio State was like a 30 point favorite. And it showed in his calling. So I'm going to give you two calls and you have to figure out which one was he excited for and which one is the internet giving him grief and saying that he wants out. Morton Slater to the sideline call. First down. What a hit. Denzel Ward.

You got barbecue back there. And you didn't invite me. Okay. All right. So you'll have to decide between that. Pretty standard for Gus Johnson. And let's see this most recent call. Or it could have been from a long time ago.

Who knows? First down to the 25, four could do. And a fumble on the play. Ohio State is there. They pick it up and run. hit in for a touchdown. Jack Sawyer. Man, that sounded like Bob Costas calling that double

play against the Royals. That was rough. And then Paul was asking me, oh, that's just, you know, they're cherry picking from the game. Well, there's more tape. There's more game tape. This is an electric run by Travion Henderson. Let's take a listen to how Gus calls this one. Famous with that performance

at the 1936 games. And this one, Trayvion Henderson, gets in of the end zone for touchdown. Yeah. Oh, you say, oh, but maybe it was because at that point they were up by two scores. How about the zero zero score? This is in the first quarter of the game, Gus Johnson giving it his best.

Howard runs it and scores. Will Howard crosses the line. That almost sounds like an AI recreation of Gus Johnson's voice without all of the... I mean, he's probably living at. Columbus at this point with how many Ohio State games he's calling. And I think he should definitely be more professional, but I think Fox should definitely not just keep putting their best play-by-play guy on Ohio State games against unranked below average Big Ten teams. And I get that. And I do understand where the frustration may be, but there's a difference between being not yourself

where just some people notice and just having no enthusiasm for the game. Like even if he would have says, oh, and Willett Howard runs it in for the touchdown. You know, that's not your normal Gus Johnson call, but at least he sounds like he's excited to be there and he's not at his third grade son's tee ball game. Well, I think Fox has the rights to the Mountain West and they usually carry a Boise State game, and I'm sure he would love to get something different every once in a while. But anyways, I think we want to talk about any of these things, Florida State. Oh yeah, Florida State, the worst AP top 10 preseason team ever.

So shame on you AP for thinking. Is that objective or is that just your opinion? No, no, no, it's by losses. Okay. By losses they've lost more than any preseason top 10 ever. Shame on you AP. You really went in there. You went to training camp and I would get it.

It's hard ranking before the season. It's college football. We talk about how anything could happen. It wouldn't make sense if Florida State was having a Kansas-like season, were there three or four games away from being close to undefeated and just had the ball bounce not their way. But how do you go to training camp? How do you look at this team before the season and say, yep, this team has a good shot of going 11 and 1. And right now they're 1 and 9. Yeah, it's wild that Florida State has just been an utterly horrible team, unlike what was expected.

I said this when I was watching the Georgia Tech game. I'm like, wow, it's been a wild year for Georgia Tech. They've got about a 500 record, but they had a great first week because they beat the top 10 AP poll. Looking back, that's not so great, but I'm sure that week it was a great atmosphere and awesome to celebrate that win. And then now they beat Miami, who's the real big fish in the ACC. But yeah, nowadays you can't really hang your hat on a Florida state win. And I know a bunch of people were looking forward to the Florida State Notre Dame game, and that was just not even worth tuning into because it was a 52 to 3 win by the Notre Dame fighting Irish. I'm with George on this one. I don't know how you look at this team and say, yeah, they're going to get something done this season. And I don't know how it can go that wrong. Like that's, it's hard to do. Yeah, well, they cleared house and fired their coordinators. So they are trying to fix things. Head coaches may be trying to save his job. Mike Norvell over there as the head coach of the Florida State Seminoles. But we'll have to see if he keeps his job after going undefeated the prior year.

year and now barely getting a win this year. And I think if there's one silver lining, if you're a fan who lives in Tallahassee, tickets are really cheap right now. I'm looking at a game. They usually fall closer to game time. Usually Ticketmaster, I don't know, they have $10, $15 of fees somewhere around there, maybe $10. It's $18 to get into the game.

Those will probably drop to 10 or 15. That's cheaper than daycare. Like, go on a date night, drop your kids off in the student section, and, you know, And pick them off three hours later. I'm sure nothing will go wrong there. As a Florida fan, I'm loving it because I'm looking forward to that free win at the end of the year. Hopefully they actually win the game and don't make me eat my words. But anyways.

Well, I mean, speaking of eating your words or looking silly, what about Florida? They look terrible against Texas. And I just want to say, I can never say his last thing. Sarcesian. Yeah, Steve Sarcassian. The misdirection that they were running against Florida. Florida was absolutely sickening how beautiful it worked. They scored on a screen where, you know, they totally deeked the defense.

They did this fake jet sweep, fake counter run, real jet sweep that picked up about 45 yards. And people were just gushing about it on Twitter. You cannot be happy for Florida and you lose by what, 37? No, it's an ugly game. And that's not what you want to see from the program. And here's the deal with this. I think that running a misdirection play like that is almost like a waste because now other teams have seen it.

I think you save that type of play for a better team than Florida. Like let's talk, like the Florida had at least two defensive backs out of the game. So obviously Quinn Ewers and Archmanning just go out there and dice them up. Florida's running on their third string quarterback still, Aiden Warner, which props to the kid for stepping up and playing. But, you know, he's nowhere near the talent of DJ Lagway, who tried warming up, but ultimately just couldn't make it work. And so you had anemic Florida offense.

I watched the highlights of this game because I couldn't stand to watch it. I didn't want to watch it. I knew what was going to happen. And literally all of the Texas highlights were 10-yard plays, 10-yard-plus plays. And then you look at Florida, and it's like every time on offense, it's a run-play, screen play, run, run, run, run. So there's definitely something to be said. Florida started to look like they had turned a corner,

but then obviously their offense just gets absolutely decimated by injury, and then their defense is no better in terms of healthy players. So it's one of those things where I don't know why you pulled it out against them. It's like you're playing an FCS school and you pull out a trick play as a top five team. But obviously it does not excuse the type of loss that that game was. One thing I won't disagree with you, Paul, is the fact that you're tuned in to the Michigan Association of Broadcasters, 2023 station of the year, radio free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.

But I do disagree that pulling out the misdirection was a bad idea because that's not a play that you actually want to run in a game against Georgia or one of those top defensive lines. The reason that play works so well is your offensive line can't let anyone through. If you're running a reverse where the guy's taking the ball from eight yards behind the line of scrimmage, that's a huge negative play. That's going to stall nine out of ten drives if that does. doesn't work out. And I think the fact that they have been able to pull it off, and it was such

a beautiful play, every team that plays Texas is going to be studying that film, which you're right makes it less likely that they're going to be able to use that. But at the same time, now when you send a guy in motion, the defense is a little more on their heels, so you don't even need to use that play. Just the threat of it might work. And I think that's what Steve Sarkasian was trying to accomplish. What about Clemson versus Virginia Tech? Carton, did you hear this call? The deep ball, the stiff arm, the crazy throw by Clemson's quarterback? Maybe. Well, you want to hear it again. Yeah. George. Let's coming off the edge. Clubnik. Almost sacked. Stayed on his feet miraculously. Room service downfield. An incredible catch and touchdown. What a time to be alive. Wow.

I had to put that on there. I just think that's one of the greatest calls of the week. Yeah. Well, that's at the top of the show. I'm not putting that at the top of the show. There's more calls. This week was excellent, so I have a lot of options. Yeah.

We should probably get to picks. Yeah, we definitely should get to picks. Real quick, I'll go through our records from last week. I went six and one. It was a great week for me in terms of picks. George, you went four and three. Carton, he was three and four. And our guest, Jack, he was four and three.

So that puts us at overall, myself. I am at 47 and 23. George is at 42 and 28. And Carton is at 37 and 33. So still all 500, but clearly Kansas was the only game I predicted incorrectly. So good on them. Makes Carton happy. But now we're going to pick some more games.

The first game we're going to talk about and pick is Arizona State Sun Devils facing the number 20 Kansas State Wildcats. I'm sticking with my prediction. from a couple weeks ago. I think Kansas State is going to end up making the Big 12 championship game. I think they're going to win out, and I think Kansas is going to find their legs and beat the teams that Kansas State needs them to beat, however unfortunate that is. I'm going to go with Kansas State winning this one.

Yeah, I'm going to go Kansas State to rely on that great run game. Yeah, I will have to also go with Kansas State here. Temptation is to pick the underdog and to pull the upset, but I don't know. I don't know. Arizona State had some bad news with that kicker tryout thing in the news, and that doesn't really inspire confidence, so I'm sticking with Kansas State. Next up, we're going to go number 24 Missouri facing South Carolina on the road. And the shocker on this one is that South Carolina is a big favorite in this game. I'm picking South Carolina because I will never pick Missouri. I'm picking Missouri because I will never pick what Carton so confidently picks.

Well, I think Carton's right on this one. As much as we've ragged on him for his picks, he is over 500 on the year. But South Carolina is a big favorite in this game, and I think that's because Brady Cook didn't play in the last game against Oklahoma. And South Carolina's been on a role recently ever since they beat Texas A&M. So I'm going to stick with them. And next, we've got number three Texas going on the road to Fayetteville, Arkansas, to play the Razorbacks.

Yeah, I think Texas takes care of business here, Fayetteville. Yeah, it's not, I mean, it's always tough to go on the road, but it's not a Death Valley or a college station or anything like that. I think Texas pretty handily takes care of Arkansas. Yeah, I've been saying for a while that I think Texas, they had a little hiccup against Georgia, obviously, and then Vanderbilt didn't inspire much confidence either. Other than that, they've played a pretty flawless schedule, watching their offensive game playing against Florida. Florida. That was one of the best executed that I've seen in a long time. I think Texas might be the best team in the nation right now. Sounding like a broken record here, but I'm going to go with Texas.

Arkansas is one of those teams that's always a threat to upset someone in the SEC, but they never can pull it off. Especially with Isaac Tesla. He's the reason why they're always, you know, an upset threat. Yeah, yeah. But they just never can get it done. They've already gotten their one this year against Tennessee, and they usually are good for one. So I'm sticking with Texas on this one. This is definitely a week where we can rack up our records and kind of pad them because not a lot of really close games this week. And we'll move on to the next one. Number 17, Clemson is going to go and face Pitt, who recently dropped out of the rankings after losing for the second straight week. Yeah, I honestly don't know much about either of these teams. I'm looking down at it and says Pitt is a 10 point

underdog. Clemson's ranked. Pitt isn't, as you just said, upsets can happen, I guess, but I'm just going to go with the favorite. This is actually a really tough decision. Give me Pitt here. I did not like the way that Clemson looked last week against Virginia Tech. Now they have to go back on the road. Yeah, give me Pitt. Yeah, Clemson, it's one of those teams that you never can figure out ever since they've, you know,

lost Trevor Lawrence. They're still trying to find themselves. I feel like Cade Klubnick threw a couple picks rolling out of the pocket and scrambling. If Pitt can put pressure on them, then that's, going to be a problem for Clemson as he seems to make his mistakes there. I'm going to have to roll with Clemson. I think Dabo's been here. He knows he's got to make the ACC championship game and he's got to keep winning to do that. So give me Clemson. Now we're getting into the closer games. Number 21 LSU is going to Gainesville in the swamp against Florida and they're only four point

favorites. This one's interesting. Paul, I'm very sorry. I really want to pick the Florida Gators. No worries. I think LSU after sort of getting routed at home versus Alabama is kind of, I think it's going to serve as a wake-up call for them. I think they take it to Florida. I think they come away with it even though it's in the swamp. The only team that looked worse than LSU last week was your very own Florida Gators. Give me LSU. Well, I think this line is so close for one reason, one reason alone. And that's simply based on if quarterback DJ Lagway,

plays for the Florida Gators, if he plays, there's a really good shot that the Gators can win this game. I've been looking to see what the thought is on if he's going to play or not, but it doesn't look too promising. He looked like he was in pain warming up against Texas because he suited up, but he ultimately decided not to play. It's one of those things. I thought Florida could steal one of these games in here, but that assumption was under the basis of them being mostly healthy, and that is not the case. So give me. LSU as well. It's one of those picks that if I'm wrong, I'm happy I'm wrong. Next, we're going back and we're picking another Kansas game. Kansas Jayhawks are playing number

7 BYU. Yep, it's a night game in Provo. I, unlike Paul, will not be doing any emotional hedging. I am picking my Jayhawks to take down BYU and the mighty, all-powerful Cosmo the Cougar. Like I said, it's a night game in Provo, anything can happen. And I'm banking on the Jayhawks to come out with fire. Yeah, this game I don't even need an agricultural analysis to know that BYU, clearly the better team. That defense is formidable. Give me the cougars.

Well, Candace definitely looked dynamic on offense this week against Iowa State. And BYU needed special teams help to get some points on the board. However, they were playing Utah. Last week I said Utah's defense wasn't good. I was wrong, clearly. I hadn't looked into it that much, and their defense is good, and they played well against BYU. I don't think Kansas's defense is as good as Utah's, so I'm going to roll with BYU as well on this one.

As a note, Paul has not picked any upset this week yet. He's taking the easy road, the path of least resistance. Henry David Thoreau would be disappointed in you, young Paul. So let's pick Game 7. I extend a formal challenge for Paul to pick the underdog valls. What do you say, Paul? Well, as George implied, our next game is number six, Tennessee, going to Athens, Georgia, and playing the Bulldogs.

While Tennessee is higher ranked, they are the underdog. They are nine-point underdogs to the Georgia Bulldogs, and yes, I was going to pick them already. It is not because of his challenge. It was because of the challenge. No, I just don't think that Tennessee... I saw you cross out the name, Paul. tenant like I've gone against Georgia

I went against them last week and I gave my reasons why I don't trust their offense Carson Beck is not that good behind center and Tennessee has a good defense this year shutting down other teams limiting them to minimal points scored I think Tennessee takes this game and their defense does work and Carson Beck turns the ball over yet again yeah you said Carson Beck wasn't good under center but luckily they run a lot of shotguns

So I'm going to go with Georgia, even though Tennessee gives me one of my favorite pickup lines. Let's send it over to Carton. Yeah, before I make the last pick of the show, George, you mentioned Henry David Thoreau, and I just got to throw it in there. This is random Matthew Cardin lore. In seventh grade, we reenacted the trial of John Brown at Harper's Ferry, and I actually had to testify as Henry David Thoreau. Was he there?

He was there. Really? Yeah, he was on the stand. I don't remember what his position was. It was a long time ago. But being from Kansas, we reenacted that trial. Good old John Brown. Big John Brown fan here.

Does not necessarily support or condone his actions. Well, to be fair, you've had a lot of hot takes on this show and we haven't gotten shut down yet. All right. Well, we'll keep rolling with that. Good luck, hopefully. As far as my pick goes, Georgia hasn't looked great. Tennessee probably isn't the better team. But I'm doing the thing again where I'm going to momentum pick.

I think Georgia kind of gets stuck in a rut and I think Tennessee comes out with it. Well, your momentum has been going up and up so that makes me feel better about my pick as well. Well, that's about all we have for today. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Bleacher Boys. We had a lot of fun today and I hope you guys have a good weekend

and enjoy everything from boxing to football. This has been The Bleacher Boys on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.